


Armour

by citrusbuds



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, M/F relationships are Teen at best and in the past, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, extensive backstory chapter, probably not canon compliant, some kid/babyfic but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusbuds/pseuds/citrusbuds
Summary: Marisa Coulter is a fortress of a woman, an entire army, a magnificent castle housed in one body. She is covered by armour made of lies and secrets. Armour nobody can pierce. Armour she has spent her entire life putting up around her. She does not allow herself to lower her shields for anyone. She is a force to reckoned with.Mary Malone slashes through her armour effortlessly, and she has no idea she even did at all.
Relationships: Edward Coulter/Marisa Coulter, Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter, Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter, Marisa Coulter & Marisa Coulter's Daemon, Marisa Coulter/Mary Malone
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Armour

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is really just Marisa character exploration that went *really* long. I'm very rambly in my writing, but I feel that works in this type of fic. It's basically just "my ADD brain won't let me enjoy writing anything until I set up a whole canon that everything fits neatly into first, so that's what I'm doing"  
>   
> "Mature" rating is my estimation of where this is going in other chapters, just to be safe. no nsfw but I'm not sure what I'll be putting in. (there will likely be about 3-4 total, depending on how much slow burn/later relationship there is, and if I do a Mary exploration chapter similar to this one.)  
>    
> Fall down the Maryisa brainrot hole with me (:
> 
> TW: mild implied self-harm, Marisa's past relationships with men, misogyny, birth mention

Marisa Coulter is a woman of significance, of status, of composure. No man could ever pierce her thick shell, the battle armour made of skirt suits and high heels, of beautifully manicured nails and piercing stares. Ruthlessness and manipulation were her weapons - quick, painful, and unforgiving. She had an image and an identity to protect. 

When she stepped out into the world, she would lower her shields for nothing and no one. She gave people the impression of vulnerability and honesty, sure - when it was useful to her. Men would give her nothing in this world unless she convinced them that they were getting something in return. And however much it pained her, she would feign gratitude, fake attraction, nothing more than a means to an end - just something she had to do. She was twisting them just into what she needed, and they didn't even know what was happening. 

She loathed men, loathed their arrogance, their superiority. 

Since she was a small child, she had been constantly reminded of her place in the world. A woman’s path in life was set - she could never be a Scholar, never have a position of authority, doomed to a life submitting to men. Determined to escape the nightmare that was her childhood and teens, she set off to make something of herself - something on par with the men she had been surrounded by all her life. 

What she really wanted to be was a type of Scholar that this world could not offer her - not a “female Scholar”, always in a separate category than those awarded the privilege of doing the real work, simply on the basis of their sex.

So she found ways to rise in the ranks of the world. It didn’t come without sacrifice and much pain, but eventually she became numb to it.   
Shutting off pain was what Marisa was a master of. She had the ability to separate from her daemon, not an innate gift, but carved into her after years of trying not to feel. And she barely felt. Barely felt the pinch deep in every part of her body when she left him. She had pushed and repressed all that pain in her soul so far down that the golden monkey hadn’t spoken a word since she was a young teenager. 

At some point, she had stopped pausing to think about the morality of her actions, letting herself be controlled purely by her goals, letting them drive her into blind rages, storms of emotion. 

* * *

When she married Edward, that wretched man, she suppressed her disgust for him, merely putting up with him. Her life with Edward was so horribly boring and stagnant - he wanted something she could never give him, wanted her to be a woman she could never contort herself into, not even to briefly pretend. She was barely twenty. She hadn’t even completed her studies - and so she spent as much time as possible in the laboratory and behind her typewriter, letting the clack of the keys drown out her thoughts. 

When she did return home to Edward at the end of the day, she felt no warmth from him. The house they lived in together was large and empty - large houses were something men bought to stroke their own egos, Marisa found. Its cavernous halls were unwelcoming to her, and his arms much less. 

Rarely would she find herself in a position where she had to have sex with him - if you could call it that - she mostly lay under him, pretending to be aroused, while he huffed and puffed. 

But when she did, afterwards she would always feel _filthy_. Violated, even. Most nights after they had sex, she would slip away to the bathroom farthest from the master bedroom and somberly draw herself a bath. She’d fill the tub, a beautiful thing - a pure white basin with amazingly crafted gold claw-feet, with scalding water. She stared at the reflection in the still water, often not recognising herself. 

Stepping in, she felt the burn of the heat on her bare skin, turning her fair skin an almost bright red. The golden monkey, always perched on the sink opposite her, flinched in turn with her. When the water was hot and painful, she reminded herself that she deserved this. The pain almost made her feel good, in a twisted way. 

But as the water cooled, she let her body relax, sinking in until only her eyes and nose were above water. Her dark hair spread in a halo around her, resting gently on the surface. But this was not a relaxed moment for Marisa. These were some of the only times she allowed herself to cry - silent, fat tears escaping from her eyes, mixing into the rest of the water, as insignificant in the sea of water molecules as she felt in the sea of people around her. She cried until she felt she had cried herself empty, just a husk. 

She never stopped this ritual, but at a certain point crying felt too vulnerable, even when she was completely alone. 

* * *

When she met Asriel, he offered her something like respect. She was never in love with Asriel, but she was in love with the _idea_ of him. He wasn’t offering power or status or money - things Edward allowed her access to. But he was the only man who she felt was somewhat her equal. 

Their relationship was brief, tumultuous, a whirlwind of emotions unlike anything Marisa had experienced before. Asriel was her own personal Garden of Eden - enticing, magical, and ultimately a disaster. She tried not to dwell on anything that had happened during that short year of her life - the pregnancy, Edward’s death, Asriel fleeing, too many nights spent silently crying herself to sleep. 

Marisa Coulter had been a woman stretched between two men, two polar opposites, and the fraying threads holding the facade of her happiness together had finally snapped, bringing her whole life down with her. 

There was one moment which came back to her in dreams, plaguing her. No matter how hard she tried or how many tears she cried, how many kicks she aimed at her daemon, how many people she ruthlessly tore apart, she could not shake the image.

* * *

  
It was a happy memory, possibly the only one she had. Lyra’s birth had not been an easy one - long, painful, but nothing Marisa couldn’t endure. But afterwards, holding that tiny baby in her arms, exhausted half to death, she felt happy in a way she never had before. Lyra’s tiny hand had reached out from the cloth blanket a nurse had swaddled her in and gripped Marisa’s finger. For a brief moment, the world stood still. It was just Marisa Coulter, a failed, pathetic woman, and this tiny, sweet, innocent baby, minutes old and nearly asleep, untouched by the world. Untouched by sin, by all the horrible things that had turned Marisa into who she was today. 

  
  


Marisa Coulter felt real love for someone for the first time in her life. 

  
  


And then Lyra began to cry. Her eyes flickered open, taking in the wonder of the world, absorbing the detail of her mother’s face, a map of pain and sorrow etched into her features. Lyra wailed, screamed, louder than Marisa thought was possible for such a tiny creature. The sound of it astounded Marisa - her tiny daughter had more raw strength in this one cry, this beautiful display of her power, than Marisa had ever exhibited in her whole adult life. 

Looking into Lyra’s eyes, dark and wet, and stroking her head as gently as possible, frantically trying her best to calm her, she realised two things. 

One; she would do anything to protect Lyra. She would fight God himself, climb into the Kingdom of Heaven and strangle him with her bare hands, for Lyra. No Authority could ever harm Lyra as long as Marisa lived. For all the lies she had told in her life, all the shields and masks and facades she had put up to protect herself, it turns out she was still capable of feeling things. And she felt everything in the world toward this little girl. But primarily, overwhelming amounts of love and adoration. Lyra was perfect. 

Lyra was perfect and she didn’t even know if she wanted to be a mother or not. For the first time since she was a child herself, she had _absolutely_ no idea what in the world she wanted. 

  
Two; She would never get the chance to be a mother to her. Adulterers like herself and Asriel keeping custody of children born of their affairs was _strictly_ _not tolerated_ by the Magisterium. She would never let Edward have this baby and she certainly couldn’t evade him and the Magisterium, carrying a child around Brytian for the rest of her life. Perhaps she could bide her time and rise further in the ranks of the Magisterium, reunite with Lyra as soon as possible - which would take years. 

And regardless, she was too driven, too cold, too ruthless to be anything but a wretched mother. Too much like her own mother. Marisa didn’t deserve this baby, didn’t deserve any kind of good relationship with anyone. She was a horrible person, not deserving of love or kindness. And she didn’t expect it either - nobody in her life had ever given it to her. No lover, no friend (not that she had ever truly had one), and certainly not her parents. She knew this well. 

  
  
And then, as suddenly as she had had these realisations, as soon as she let all her armour fall away, tumble off her body and lie at her feet, her vulnerability and love for this baby exposed to the world, Lyra was whisked away. Her arms were empty, but she could still feel the warmth of her daughter’s tiny body linger. She would pick up her shields, don her armour, and steel herself for the battle. Marisa Coulter spent every day wading through a river of pain, crushing and crumbling her heart. Today would be no different. 

  
  
  
  
  


Marisa preferred not to think about that moment, but she knew inside that it drove everything she did. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
It had driven her all the way through her life, all the way to this very moment. So here she was, standing in the messy office of a woman she knew nothing about, tearing it apart with her eyes, absorbing every detail. The computer was left logged in, open on a webpage - “ _The History of I Ching_ ” Books and papers strewn across the desk and floor, an uncapped pen bleeding ink onto a notebook page. Her gaze lingered on a picture of the woman - she was wearing a hiking outfit and beaming into the camera. Her face seemed to convey a completely honest happiness. Captivated by this image, the way the woman presented herself, she found herself lost in thought. 

_A female Scholar, with seemingly no hesitations. No castle walls built around her psyche. Mary Malone didn’t need armour._

  
  
  
  
  
  


Marisa heard the door open. 

  
  
  


“Can I help you?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, I am very soft for the two of them, but I didn't feel it was appropriate to write a real fic before I had done a proper exploration of Marisa - I understand Mary's personage/backstory and guiding values/goals much better than Marisa's.
> 
> That being said, this will end up being a multi-chapter fic (unless this is a complete flop) So let me know what you think in the comments (,: it's my first published fic so I'm scared to say the least...


End file.
